As an alternately underpaid/unpaid Hollywood intern, you always have to fake that you're "just lucky to have the experience." You're "thankful to be working with such great people" and "truly blessed to be learning so much." It's institutionalized bullshit, insisting that the emasculating experience is more important than full time employment.
But recently, I have been genuinely lucky to be working with one particular individual...as from my office/copy room, I now have a front row seat for their slow, devastating, full-on Travis Bickle descent into insanity.
Over the past month, this individual has slowly lost his or her grasp on reality. Symptoms include: Seeing things that aren't there. Gross paranoia. An even more inflated sense of ego. Having involved conversations with/yelling at walls. Assuming that every room in the building is their office. Crying in the bathroom. Inventing conspiracy theories of which their closest relatives are integral members. It's your typical, garden variety, cry for help stuff. It's nothing out of the ordinary, but you're impressed when you're witness to it. Like a car crash or anything that happens behind a bar at 2am in the morning.
It's exactly like Black Swan, only instead of two hot bi-curious ballerinas, you've got Hollywood politics and inane, fast paced rants about cinematography. And instead of lesbian intrigue, there's white men violently arguing about trivial contract points. And in the place of growing feathers and red eyes, you've got the insane wardrobe choice of coming into work on Tuesday without a tie. Basically, imagine if Aaron Sorkin wrote Black Swan.
The most irritating/debilitating part of this madness, though, is a quirk that has probably existed well before this person began to shut his or her self off from the world with a wall of Pink Floydian proportions.
Speaking about themselves in the third person.
Otherwise known as "Illeism" or "Being a pompous douche," it involves referring yourself using the pronoun "He" or "She" or, in most cases, just using your name as opposed to "I" or "Me." For example: "Trust me. I'm BLANK" or "I mean, if BLANK wants a cappuccino, then BLANK is getting a cappuccino." True, there are worse things for a person to do, such as speaking about yourself in the fourth person (talking about those around you as "he" or "she"). Or the dreaded FIFTH person, which is rumored to involve having someone else (the second person) refer to you in the third person.
It is very rare that someone can pull it off. Even God, in all of His Almighty majesty, never once referred to Himself as "He." No, He let others do that for Him. It is always "I believe this" or "I want you to sacrifice your son." Occasionally He says "Your God is angry," but it's never meant to be pompous. For an all powerful deity, He is generally humble. Never resorts to the third person (possibly since in the trinity, he is also the first and third person). Look it up. It's in the Bible. Right next to the passage about how gays can't get married and your first born daughter is acceptable legal tender.
Great men don't have to refer to themselves as such. Napoleon used "moi." Caesar said "Ego." There are only a few instances in recorded history in which individuals of such caliber and stature can successfully pull the third person and not ramp up their asshole quotient.
Acceptable uses of the third person:
Confucius
Disco Stu
Duffman
The Rock (a.k.a. The People's Champ a.k.a The Great One a.k.a. The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment a.k.a. The Brahma Bull)
Ricky Henderson
Anyone named "Simon" playing "Simon Says"
Homey D. Clown
The Incredible Hulk
Children under the age of three
And that's it. If you're not a professional wrestler, Hall of Fame athlete, Simpsons character, superhero, or Transformer, you're shit out of luck. Like in anger management, use "I feel" and "I think" statements rather than "Steve feels" or "Steve thinks" or "Shut the hell up while Steve is watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy on Hulu."
Note: As I look around the office, I feel a need to stop writing this post. "You know who" is currently attempting to read over my shoulder, convinced that I'm writing slanderous libel (their words, not mine) about them. Paranoid much?
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